To the Egyptians, the ibis was a perfect symbol for their nation because its white plumage showed the sun, its black neck the shadow of the moon, its body a heart, its legs a triangle, and it always appeared at the rising of the Nile. The ibis relates to Thoth in the same way that the falcon relates to Merlin.

The name Thoth is a corruption of Djehuti, or Tahuti, whom the Greeks identified with Hermes – hence Hermopolis. In this area of Egypt he was seen as a Moon God, intimately connected with tides, and madness and matings, and wisdom of a reflective sort, whose sacred animals were the ibis itself, of course, and also the baboon, which in some households was kept as a pet, trained to pick fruit and even help with simple domestic chores. As one who rescued the Eye of Horus after it was stolen by Set, Thoth is in Khemnu to ensure that the shadow-aspects of this centre do not lose touch with the light entirely.

Thoth appears in many guises throughout the vast array of Egyptian mythology, and although he was respected and admired, he never quite attained the public appeal of the likes of, say, Sekhmet and Hathor. Many of the gods began their theological,careers as philosophical concepts which, sometimes, attached themselves to human figures from myth or history. Christ was seen in Jesus, Geb in Osiris, but this process never developed with Thoth.